Faith can be defined by two words, "self-confidence" and "certainty in expectation." Faith in no way signifies certainty without expectation, nor confidence with evidence. All things in life are appointed from eternity for a certain time; every experience and every knowledge comes in its own time. No doubt in this free will plays a certain part, as destiny plays a great part. We make our road in life by our expectations. Things that we have not attained to we look forward to, and hope to attain; ideals that we wish to reach we expect to reach some day. And that which determines our success in attaining our ideal is faith. It is faith that uncovers things veiled with a thousand covers, it is faith that attracts things almost out of reach. The distance between heaven and earth, the difference between life and death can be bridged by faith.

There is blind faith, and there is faith which is not blind. Faith is blind when its power is small and reason does not support it; then faith may be called blind. But in fact the mind has all power. Every expectation that it has will certainly be fulfilled sooner or later; it may not be fulfilled in a certain limited time, but in eternity it will be fulfilled. Faith is the power of the mind; without faith the mind is powerless.

When faith leads and reason follows success is sure, but when reason leads and faith follows success is doubtful. Faith causes the attitude of the mind, the influence of the attitude of the mind works psychically upon every affair. The belief, "My friend is faithful to me and is helping me," by itself influences the helper.

And when there is a doubting attitude -- "Perhaps my friend or my agent is faithful to me, perhaps not" -- then the fact is made doubtful. Faith can bring a surer and speedier cure than medicine, and both success and failure in life depend very much upon faith. Man rides upon the elephant and controls tigers by the power of faith. The great people of the world, the greatest people, are great more by their faith than by anything else, because mostly great people have been adventurous and at the back of a venture is faith, nothing else.

Reason can strengthen faith, but things that are beyond reason can be reached by faith alone. If faith is limited by reason it is held down so that it cannot rise, but when faith is independent of reason it is raised by the force of the ideal, and then reason has scope to advance and reach the ideal. Those who believe in an ideal and those who do not have both arrived at their conviction by faith; in the former it is positive, in the latter negative. An unbeliever asked a believer, "If there were no God then would not all your prayers and expectations be in vain?" The believer answered, "If there be no God, and if my prayers are vain and all that I have done for God is lost, then I am in the same case as you, but if He exists, then I have the advantage." Faith is natural and its negative unnatural.

As all things in this artificial world are made by faith so the whole creation is made by the faith of the divine mind. Therefore as the divine mind has been able to create all by faith, so man by this divine attribute can rise to the source of his being.

Thought, speech, and action without faith are as body without life. All things by faith are made alive, for faith is the life of all things. Think what joy trust brings, and what a feeling of suffocation doubt brings! When a person does not trust another that means he has no confidence in himself; he is not happy through this. It would be no exaggeration to say that material loss resulting from misplaced confidence is better than all profit resulting from justified suspicion.